Counting
by puppypersonLOTR107
Summary: Sometimes counting up the numbers makes a difference. Blaine muses as a freshman in college. AU in that Blaine didn't join the Warblers at Dalton and never met Kurt.


Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Future Fic, Blaine in college. Very random, just some thoughts I wanted to put down on paper. Figurative paper, of course.

AU in which Blaine didn't join the Warblers at Dalton and never met Kurt. I'm going to go with Dalton as not a boarding school, too.

Blaine sat on his bed in his dorm room. He'd been at college for a few months now, and while things weren't perfect, they were already better than things had been at Dalton. While he had been grateful that the bullying had ceased, nobody at Dalton really reached out to him, and he hadn't made many close friends. He had a couple of friends that he was close with; more or less. But he had never felt particularly special to them; they liked hanging out with him, but they had other friends where he didn't, and he knew that the other friends were more important than he was. He was welcome to tag along, but that was about it. Nobody had a problem with him, but he was pretty sure nobody would have missed him if he'd stopped turning up to hang out. He'd even tested it a few times, despite realizing it was childish and hating himself for it. Wandering away from the group, hoping against hope that someone would notice and come looking for him. So dumb, he knew. But he wanted so desperately to feel not just included, but wanted. To be important to someone. Not the center of attention or anything, but just important.

That plus things at home had not left Blaine in a great place personally during high school. His aunt had been diagnosed with cancer when he'd only been at Dalton a few months, part way through his sophomore year. She and he were especially close, and watching her suffer through treatment was torture for Blaine. That plus the loss of most of her support made life even more miserable. Blaine knew his aunt Molly wanted to be there for him, to help see him through school and the challenges of life, but it was all she could do to try to fight to survive, let alone be there for Blaine. She tried, both to be there for Blaine through her pain and to win out over the disease, but despite all her efforts the cancer won and she had died early in Blaine's senior year.

His friends had been sympathetic and supportive to some extent, but they didn't really know what to say or do. Blaine understood; he didn't know what he wanted them to do or say either. Life turned very black during those months; Blaine felt that he was very alone (his typically absent and perennially emotionally distant parents didn't count) in the world, and didn't see any kind of future for himself. It became so much of an effort to get out of bed in the morning; it was almost worse to get into bed to go to sleep at night, because his brain spun wildly for hours just when he wanted it to be calm so he could rest. Then, when sleep finally came, it was time to get up again. Focusing on schoolwork was difficult, and took an immense amount of emotional energy for some reason. Blaine had always found school easy, but in the latter part of his senior year things just didn't sink into his brain well. Thankfully his grades had already been submitted to colleges, so he still got into a good school despite slipped grades his final year of high school.

But things were better now. And Blaine could quantify it in a very simple way.

After his aunt had died, Blaine had tallied from time to time. There were good days and bad, but he figured on average, it was about five to ten times a day, give or take a few. On a bad day, much more; on a good day, perhaps only one or two.

And on this day, Blaine realized he hadn't tallied in a while. In this new environment, independent, with new friends he thought had potential to be really close friends he could really trust, the numbers had changed.

He thought it had been several days since he last wished he were dead, or fantasized about killing himself.

It was such a change. So different. Somehow, the dropping of the number down to less than one a day seemed hopeful. Perhaps one day, things would improve to the point where he wouldn't wish this way.

Blaine realized this was a key realization, a key improvement. Maybe he had a future after all. Things could get better.


End file.
